


Beata Beatrix

by lexlee20



Category: Hatoful Kareshi | Hatoful Boyfriend
Genre: Dante (Rossetti/Alighieri), Gen, Hatoful birdfic, Mariolatry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-04-05
Packaged: 2017-11-02 21:42:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lexlee20/pseuds/lexlee20
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Akagi Yoshio goes into medical quarantine. He does not come back out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for a lengthy hatofulkink prompt: "[....]I think Shuu may have done experiments on him to see his capabilities as a weapon.. [...I] want to see this explored and i really want to see the fucked-up-ness of someone like Anghel being exploited and taken advantage of by Shuu, of all people. I WANT THE SADNESS TO FLOW THROUGH MY VEINS."
> 
> Story title from the [Rossetti painting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beata_Beatrix). Internal quotes are from the Ciardi translation. Also, the game writes out the name "Higure" with two different kanji that both refer to the color red.

Anghel lay on his back in the top bunk, painting the ceiling blue to look like the summer sky. He wished he could go outside, but he'd been told the quarantine period was necessary to protect the human student at St. Pigeonation's from being accidentally infected with any exotic diseases.

He'd never met a real human girl before. Did she look more like the blue and white statue of Our Lady of the Immaculate Heart, or did she have the exquisite dark face of the Black Madonna of Einsiedeln? Both of those were in his collection of devotional figurines, set up in the religious niche he'd created in the bottom bunk. He said his prayers before them every night, since he couldn't leave this underground quarantine dormitory to go attend Mass.

Dr. Iwamine brought him everything else he needed: books, food, or art supplies. And he was interested in Anghel's art, always asking to see it during the regular visits for inoculations. Anghel liked anyone who liked his art.

The quarantine period was just for forty days and forty nights, just like Noah's Ark. After that, he could join the homeroom he'd already been assigned to, and meet his classmates. Maybe even the girl.

Anghel wiped a drop of blue paint from his beak and decided this was enough for now. He flipped back onto his feet, stretched his cramped wings, and flew down to the floor. Maybe he would go back to _La Divina Commedia_ until bedtime.

He'd only started reading this translation earlier today, so he hadn't gotten very far yet. It wasn't as obviously poetic as some of the other versions he knew, but it was easier to follow-- almost like reading prose. And the story of Francesca da Rimini was always beautiful no matter what.

"...I called, 'O wearied souls!  
if none forbid it, come and speak to us.'

As mating doves that love calls to their nest  
glide through the air with motionless raised wings  
borne by the sweet desire that fills each breast--

Just so those spirits turned on the torn sky..."

Anghel sighed, trying to envision it. The endless whirlpool of the winds of hell, with two lovers still desperately clinging together through damnation... he wished he could paint the wind. He wished he would feel it in his feathers again, and soar up into the sunlight.

Noah's Ark, he told himself. Forty days and forty nights. After that, the dove would be free to fly out and see the rest of the new world.

\---

Dr. Iwamine's notebook--

Subject: Akagi Yoshio (nickname/baptismal name "Anghel")

Origin: Overseas student on art scholarship. Submission portfolio showed clear depictions of virus capsules and other organisms in unusual contexts (e.g. as exotic flowers, carved gems etc.). On interview, student denied any formal knowledge or study of microbiology, and simply said that he'd made those paintings when he was ill.

Hypothesis: Student has anomalously detailed awareness of infectious organisms on exposure. Need to test with further exposures and observation of artwork.

Preliminary notes: The artwork frequently uses religious themes from his upbringing. Student has expressed deep gratitude for his scholarship grant. If needed, guilt should be a useful psychological lever.

\---

Day 6: Hypothesis seems correct so far. Subject still seems unaware of his abilities. After administration, each infectious agent is drawn in enough detail to identify the specific strain.

Appended image: Photocopied artwork of a battle scene; central figures are reminiscent of the Four Vultures of the Apocalypse-- Pestilence? Each vulture is wielding a mace or morning star whose spiked/knobbed head can be identified as C. psittaci, polyoma, avipox, or West Nile virus.

Day 11: Subject has constant low-level fever induced by multiple exposures, slightly impairing cognition. Artistic abilities seem unaffected. Continuing the experiment as planned.

\---

The entire dorm ceiling was blue now, except for unpainted white streaks that'd been left around the fluorescent fixtures to make them look more like bright clouds. Anghel nestled in his top bunk, reading.

Everyone always said that the "Inferno" was the best part of Dante, but Anghel liked the "Purgatorio" and the "Paradiso" too. But before he could start on those, he had to finish travelling through hell. He'd reached the last pit of the Eighth Circle, so he was most of the way there.

"...that time when such malignance rode the air  
that every beast down to the smallest worm  
shriveled and died..."

Anghel shivered. He'd been raised with stories of the terrible plague, and of the holy nuns who came out from their teaching hospitals and nursed everyone through their sickness, human and bird alike. It was his duty to help Dr. Iwamine improve medical science, so this would never happen again.

The thought reminded him that he needed to continue work on his latest piece. Awkwardly, he flopped down to the floor. His left wing hurt from all the injections, but not enough to stop painting. It was an image of Francesca da Rimini, her blue gown swirling like a tattered banner in the wind. Blue, the color of hope. The hope for salvation, the hope for freedom. The hope for release from pain.

\---

Day 17: In an attempt to combat listlessness, subject's diet was supplemented with a mild stimulant. Extraordinarily unexpected consequences. More detailed notes later, after comparison to reference images.

Marginal doodle: a rough sketch by Dr. Iwamine of leucocytes and antibody receptors, from memory.

Day 21: It appears my visualization is limited to his own perception. However, with proper encouragement, I can cause him to focus on particular areas of interest, including pathogens outside his body: Petri dish cultures, free-floating mold spores etc. Increasing his stimulant dosage.

\---

Anghel's eyes were as red and burning as the feathers on his breast. The dry filtered air and the paint fumes made his head hurt.

"Your wing seems to be bleeding."

Anghel nodded jerkily, not looking up from his sketchpad. "Yes, sir." He couldn't stop drawing, even to greet the doctor to whom he owed so much. His art scholarship, his opportunity to help science and the world, everything in this enclosed underground world was there thanks to Dr. Iwamine. "My pen nib snapped last night. I had to make myself a new one."

"I see... so you pulled out your own primary wingfeathers to cut some fresh quill pens?" Dr. Iwamine was meticulously writing in his own notebook.

"Yes." It had hurt. It still hurt. He didn't care. He had to keep drawing. "The bleeding doesn't matter. It's like stigmata. The stigmata of the holy saints. I pray to them for inspiration."

The partridge finished writing, but contemplatively tapped his pen a few times on his notebook before putting it away. "Perhaps you've had enough inspiration for now, Akagi. You need a more varied diet-- more berries and dried mealworms, not just bitter black beans."

"Sir?"

"There's a particular specimen I want you to examine for me, but I think you need to rest first. Take a break from drawing for a few days. Try reading or something else until then."

"Yes sir. I will do whatever you say." It hurt to stop drawing, but the doctor had told him to stop. So he had to obey. He climbed back into his top bunkbed and stared at the painted sky.

He'd finished reading the "Inferno" days ago, but he was still drawing scenes from it. The very ending, with Satan entombed upright in ice at the very center of hell. The Ninth Circle of Hell, with its four concentric pits for the traitorous and ungrateful. Caina, for the betrayers of their own families. Antenora, for traitors to their countries. Ptolomea, for those who would break the sacred laws of hospitality. And the lowest and worst, Judecca, for those who betrayed their benefactors and masters.

If Anghel disobeyed the doctor, he would suffer eternal damnation to the ice pits of Judecca. And he would deserve it.

The painting of Francesca da Rimini sat on the easel. It was nearly finished. Her blue gown was now obscured by ashy gusts, the color of hope eclipsing into despair.

\---

Day 24: Subject seems to have recovered from overstimulation. Will bring him a biopsy sample of the Charon Virus tomorrow.

\---

Anghel felt calmer now. After sleeping for an entire day, he'd finished reading most of the "Purgatorio" and finally reached the introduction of Beatrice. Beatrice, the divine intermediary for Dante, almost like Our Lady's blessed dove... maybe he could paint Beatrice next. Dante said she was wearing a green gown, but Anghel liked blue better.

He crouched in front of the little figurines. He wished he had real flowers to put in front of them, but origami was the best he could do for now. He placed a tiny folded edelweiss at the feet of the Black Madonna of Einsiedeln, and whispered a prayer. He hoped she would like the edelweiss. It was supposed to be from Switzerland, like her.

When he turned around, Dr. Iwamine was already there with his silent, unreadable smile. The glass dish on the table held a small, translucent flake like a flower petal, with an irregular splotch in the middle. The beaker beside it was filled with black steaming liquid. "Good morning, Akagi. This is a microtome sample," the doctor said. "I want you to swallow it, followed by this cup of espresso. And then let's see what happens."

\---

Day 25: Subject responded poorly to sample ingestion. Instead of providing information about the Charon virus, he experienced (and projected) vivid hallucinations of being enveloped in flame. Most unpleasant. Probable memetic contamination from the surrounding tissue sample.

Clearly, it would have been preferable to separate the Charon virus from the tissue matrix and administer it cleanly, but it will not culture on its own. The virus quickly self-destructs without a host; it does sporulate for airborne transmission, but only in a small radius of infection.

The subject has been placed in restraints for now, having injured his own eye in an attempt to stop seeing/experiencing Fujishiro's death.

Day 26: Although the stimulant has cleared from the subject's bloodstream, his hallucinations continue. I am keeping him in isolation, as it seems inadvisable to enter his range of effective projection.

Day 30: Subject appears severely compromised. He has a violent negative response to the name "Akagi Yoshio", instead referring himself in quasi-religious terminology as the "Crimson Angel of Judecca". When released from restraints, he resumes his attempts at self-injury.

\---

White. White gauze bandages, everywhere. White for faith, but Anghel has lost his faith. He is no longer worthy to wear white.

His wings are bound together, and his claws, so he cannot tear off the white gauze. He cannot cling to the feet of Our Lady of the Immaculate Heart and pray to her for salvation from this torment of eternal flame. He cannot pray to the Black Madonna of Einsiedeln at all anymore, because her dark face reminds him too much of those other faces he sees-- humans clawing at their throats, choking and dying. A young mourning dove at a polished steel door, watching its own reflection blacken and burn.

Anghel lies on the floor, a small bound bird with only one bright, mad eye showing beneath the bandages. He looks up at the painted sky, and he desperately wishes for a blue-robed woman to descend through it to heal him with soft hands, to say kind words to him and love him.

It is all his fault. Akagi Yoshio's fault. He is useless to the doctor, and he cannot paint anymore, and he has utterly failed in all of his obligations to others and to himself. He has betrayed everyone, and he is already burning in hell.


	2. floating

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: _Shuu / Anghel / on a boat_
> 
> A non-BBL quasi-sequel to "Beata Beatrix".

Dr. Iwamine fluffed out his feathers, contemplating his patient with deep annoyance. The Luzon dove lay pinioned in white gauze, nearly catatonic. The most recent self-inflicted wounds seemed to have stopped bleeding, although there was still a danger of infection in the one where the point of the mapping pen had snapped off. If anything, that had been a stroke of luck, as that had blunted the pen just before it was stabbed at Iwamine.

Iwamine added a careful note to his records from the previous day. "Subject emphatically insists on the name 'Higure Anghel'. Do not address him as 'Akagi Yoshio'."

When Iwamine waved a light over the bed, the unbandaged eye failed to track it, and yet the dove's beak had a constant subtle tremor of whispering his useless prayers. "Rosa mystica, ora pro nobis... janua caeli, ora pro nobis... stella matunina, ora pro nobis... regina angelorum, ora pro nobis..."

Iwamine added a small dose of stimulant to the IV drip, enough from previous experience to induce a narrow projective field of whatever Anghel might be hallucinating. The heart monitor's regular beeps quickened slightly, but nothing else happened. Despite the automatic litanies, his mind now seemed completely blank.

At least this was an improvement on the hypersensory apocalypse from the trigger experiment. Abstractly, it was intriguing how Anghel had combined traditional religious imagery with features of the underground complex around them, although some aspects still puzzled Iwamine. (It might be legitimately upsetting to be locked inside a room full of flames, but it made no sense that the worst part of that vision would be someone pounding on the other side of the door screaming to be let _in_.) However, the hallucinations had been quite an unpleasant experience while actually in progress, and Iwamine had quickly removed himself to a safe distance outside Anghel's projection radius.

And now, it seemed Anghel had nothing left in his mind to project. A waste of resources and effort, as useless as those prayers.

Iwamine began to mentally review the usual methods of liquidation, but another thought came to him. One final chance to use this tool to further the cause of science.

\---

Iwamine still had a box of feathers from that final field expedition together. Perhaps some of them contained traces of the lethal virus they'd been investigating.

For the next few hours, he extracted and purified DNA from the last feathers he'd collected. It was well past midnight by the time he injected it into Anghel, along with an experimental combination of both stimulants and sedatives to balance the mental projections against physical frenzy.

Iwamine sat by Anghel's bedside and waited.

\---

Anghel is dreaming. He knows he is dreaming. He would much rather see the dream world than the real one, even if the dream world is blank and silent like the inside of an eggshell.

But now the eggshell is dissolving around him to show a warm blue sky above him, and a warm blue sea beneath. He is poised perfectly between them on a small raft, where he blinks his eyes open to see a partridge at his side. There are cormorants in the water in front of them, pulling the raft as they swim.

The partridge strongly resembles Dr. Iwamine, but somehow Anghel does not fear him. Anghel feels very tired, and a bit wistful about things left undone, but he does not feel afraid. When Anghel opens his mouth, his voice and words do not belong to him.

"Hey... good morning, Isa. We're on the ferry, aren't we?"

"Yes. We'll reach the main island in less than an hour. If their hospital can't treat you, we can catch a flight straight back home."

"You shouldn't be changing our schedule like this--"

"Sir. I am not letting you die."

Anghel sighs, weakly flexing his black-barred grey wings. "Did you bring all of the specimens I'd already collected? I'd like to look through them again."

The partridge Isa nods, and begins to rummage through a hastily-packed travel bag. Anghel stares out to sea, enjoying the cool flecks of foam on the tropical breeze. By the time Isa hands him the specimen box, Anghel has made up his mind.

As Anghel sorts through the sealed envelopes of individual feathers, he lightly says, "You know, I think this disease may be another human bio-weapon. It seems to be optimized for killing doves, spreading from one live host to another. It works slowly enough that we can fly around for weeks and spread it to others, but the virus completely self-destructs as soon as the host dies. Other animals, even other birds, are completely immune-- not just because their immune system breaks it down, but because it can't survive in them at all. So at least you can't spread it to anyone else when we get back."

"I suppose not." The partridge does not seem to care.

"Me, on the other hand... once we reach shore, I could infect every dove on the main island. From there, they could get onto an international flight with other passengers before they show any symptoms. If you take me all the way back to Japan...."

"We can set up a quarantine area for you with only non-columbiform medical staff."

"It's too risky, Isa." So many feathers. Where is that single one he's looking for?

"Sir," the partridge stubbornly repeats. "I am not letting you die. If I have to, I'll tend you by myself, alone, until you're well again. I can find a treatment, I know I can--"

"Perhaps," Anghel says, at last finding the right envelope. "But I don't think you can do it before we reach land." The shore is growing nearer, with the dark green shimmer of leaves and the cry of seagulls. He smiles at Isa one last time, unseals the envelope, and puts the pitohui feather in his mouth.

\---

Iwamine woke suddenly, lurching off-balance from the unequal force of his own wings. He'd fallen asleep, and the nightmare had been strong enough to cause a startle-flight reflex. Nightmare, or memory... he remembered lunging across the raft, trying to tear the feather out of Kawara's beak, but the rock dove had died even before the partridge could reach him.

So, Iwamine thought. Kawara was right again after all, damn him. The vision had provided no useful information about the virus from his own feathers. Though perhaps this form of psychic telemetry could be useful after all....

Iwamine shook his head to finish clearing away the fog of sleep, and at last realized that the nightmare had not been the only thing to awaken him. The heart monitor's regular beeps had turned into a monotonous flatline drone.

\---

On the way back from the lake, Iwamine encountered the human girl, and her inconvenient primate night vision.

"Dr. Iwamine? Why is there mud on your wing?"

"I was throwing something away. Something that I no longer needed."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N Wikipedia quote: "Batrachotoxins (BTX) are extremely potent cardiotoxic and neurotoxic steroidal alkaloids found in certain species of frogs (poison dart frog), melyrid beetles, and birds (Pitohui, Ifrita kowaldi, Colluricincla megarhyncha). It is the most potent non-peptidal neurotoxin known."


End file.
